News tagged with subsurface ocean

Pluto is thought to possess a subsurface ocean, which is not so much a sign of water as it is a tremendous clue that other dwarf planets in deep space also may contain similarly exotic oceans, naturally leading to the question ...

Beneath Pluto's "heart" lies a cold, slushy ocean of water ice, according to data from NASA's New Horizons mission. In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the New Horizons team, including researchers from MIT, ...

Sputnik Planitia, a 1,000-kilometer wide basin within the iconic heart-shaped region observed on Pluto's surface, could be in its present location because accumulation of ice made the dwarf planet roll over, creating cracks ...

When the NASA's New Horizons spacecraft buzzed by Pluto last year, it revealed tantalizing clues that the dwarf planet might have—or had at one time—a liquid ocean sloshing around under its icy crust. According to a new ...

The water-world Enceladus appears here to sit atop Saturn's rings like a drop of dew upon a leaf. Even though it appears like a tiny drop before the might of the giant Saturn, Enceladus reminds us that even small worlds hold ...

Jupiter's four largest moons – aka. the Galilean moons, consisting of Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto – are nothing if not fascinating. Ever since their discovery over four centuries ago, these moons have been a source ...

Tides flowing in a subsurface ocean of molten rock, or magma, could explain why Jupiter's moon Io appears to have its volcanoes in the "wrong" place. New NASA research implies that oceans beneath the crusts of tidally stressed ...

A University of Colorado Boulder instrument has been selected to fly on a NASA mission to Jupiter's icy moon, Europa, which is believed to harbor a subsurface ocean that may provide conditions suitable for life.